Posted on 08/10/2002 1:29:46 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
The anti-FReepers are on the prowl. As most of you know, there is a group of ex-FReepers who have been dogging us for the last several years. The anti-FReeper community was started several years ago by a group of disgruntled individuals who were banned from FR and then wanted to get back at us by damaging our reputation. This started out as petty name calling and rumor mongering, but they now appear determined to cause us as much harm as possible. Even to the point of attempting to get FR and FRN shut down and the owners and managers of the organizations bankrupted or jailed.
Some of the early members of the group include ex-FReepers Mojo, Aligyrl, Landshark, Z2, Headhunter, LindaM, and others who have come and gone over the years. The most recent additions to active anti-FReeping appear to be ex-FReepers Clarity, Clinton's a Liar and JoeEveryman.
There appears to be a certain love/hate relationship involved here. Some of these people hate FR and its PTB (that's "Powers That Be" in their lingo) with such passion that they cannot stay away. Some of the original members of the AF community have given up and drifted off, some have come back to FR, and some are as determined as ever to kill FR and have me and whomever else they can thrown into prison for whatever crimes they imagine us guilty. Their motivation is pure revenge. Their driving force is hatred.
Their current attack is centered around an attempt to break up the Free Republic Network and, through that angle, to cause as much damage to FR as possible. Unfortunately for all of us, there is a genuine problem with the ex-leader of the South Carolina Chapter. Apparently, there was some money collected for events that was never paid over to the vendors and the chapter leader is accused of taking off with the money. I am not going into all of the gory details here, but I understand that there is an official police investigation ongoing and the SC Chapter and the FRN are cooperating fully with the authorities. The anti-FReepers, led by JoeEveryman, are trying to gain maximum leverage from any fallout from this case and are attempting to use it to bring down FRN.
JoeEveryman ran an FR thread (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/728856/posts) last week on this subject. I eventually deleted it because it was turning into an anti-FReeper haven and I do not want that on FR. The anti-FReepers have plenty of their own websites to conduct their hate campaign. Those who are interested may find JoeEveryman (posting as "Panjandrum") on the LibertyPost.org forum, now appearing to be the latest home of the anti-FReeper community. I have undeleted the JoeEveryman thread for those who are interested in reading it, but have left it locked. I do not want any more anti-FReeping activity on FR.
JoeEveryman is now banned from Free Republic. It is clear on the thead that he ran here on FR and on this (http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readarticle.cgi?114+1485+0+1) thread on LibertyPost.org that his intent is to bring FR down and to cause us as many legal problems as he can. I cannot see allowing him to do this on my own website.
It appears to me that they are either preparing some sort of lawsuit and or are trying to entangle me, Bob J, FR and FRN into the SC case. None of us had anything to do with whatever wrongdoing may have taken place in SC. The South Carolina Chapter is an independent entity, as are all of the FR chapters, and neither FR nor FRN have any ownership or control over their activities. It appears that the anti-FReepers are trying to break that down. We'll see. FRN is cooperating fully with the authorities and I will too if they ask.
In the meantime, I do not want them scheming on FR so they are banned and will remain banned. I will also ban any other FR members who get actively engaged in this attempt to bring down FR.
A request to all. Please do not drag any of the anti-FReeper stuff to FR. I do not want it here.
Free Republic has withstood many attacks over the years, from both the left and the right and I am confident that we will survive this attack from this Free Republic Haters Association as well.
Thanks for your continued support.
Jim
It does sound like that now-banned freeper is setting up Jim Rob for a lawsuit and the less information posted the better.
Nothing at all unreasonable about that.
Bush people generally tend to follow rules. We are just boring old main-stream Republicans, not conservative enough for you, of course.
By the way, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
The ads that were run on FR said that Harris and Sauls would be in attendenace at the S.C. event to accept Freedom awards. There was alot of buzz around the S.C. event and alot of people wanted to go.
About a week before the event, I became aware of problems in getting attendance confirmation from Judge Sauls and Katherine Harris. One person in particular (who shall remain nameless) in the S.C. chapter was beside herself because she was told to keep quiet about the event, and that the S.C. chapter had "alot of money" riding on the event. And in fact, they did.
When I became aware of the problems, I posted a thread in the FAB section wanting to know if Katherine Harris and Judge Sauls were in fact going to attend. At the time, there were more than 50 people on Paltalk planning on coming.
Instead of answering the question on the thread, I was trashed by several "key" members of the FAB and told I was destroying the event. The lack of an answer to a direct "are they coming or not?" question spoke volumes.
As the date of the event approached, it was finally learned by a handful of people (including myself) that Judge Sauls and Katherine Harris would not be attending the event --- but it was too late for us to cancel. Plane tickets and reservations on the island were non-refundable. So we opted to go anyway. After all, we had all spoken on-line for so long we wanted to meet each other, and if nothing else we could make a good time for ourselves ... which is what we ended up doing.
But I gotta tell ya, the whole thing STUNK. From the way it was promoted (in which I felt after one point it became deliberately misleading) to how FR was used to promote an event that the organizers knew couldn't live up to it's "billing."
For the record, and for the AF'ers who seek to destroy FR and JimRob, when Jim became aware of what was going on with the event, he pulled the ads from the forum's opening page, and all other pages. In short, Jim did the right thing.
And finally, after all the trashing I took on the FAB boards for raising (and now being validated) my concerns surrounding this event and how FR was fraudulently used by one or more of the event's organizers -- I tell you it was worth it. It was worth doing the right thing and letting Jim know what was going on. It was worth doing the right thing and exposing the fraud that was perpetuated not only on I, but on 15-20 other Freepers who attended that event, and spent our hard earned money to book flights and lodging accommodations. In short, it was worth doing the right thing. Those of you who trashed me instead of attempting to uncover the truth for yourselves should take a lesson from that. Unless and until YOU take a stand for what is right, you're no better than our opposition.
And if that comment gets me banned from the FAB, so be it. Doing so would only validate me further. Frankly, I don't think any of you have it "in you" to step up to the plate and apologize for your trashing me a year ago and I won't hold my breath waiting. I know what type of person I am, and I know what type of people you are.
And now my email to JimRob:
---begin paste---
I trust you recall my comments from last year in which I expressed my concern for FR's allowing promotion of chapter events on the FR forum? Specifically, the claims that were made regarding the attendance of Katherine Harris and the Florida's Judge Sauls at the SC event?
Now you see why. They KNEW beforehand that in fact neither would be attending and yet kept promoting the event saying both would be in attendance until I called them on the carpet for it. Remember the trashing I took on the forum? I truly wish I were wrong in this case, really I do. But everything from the way they asked people to pay for the rooms (ie: give Julie your credit card info.) just STUNK to high heaven.
I'm actually sorry in this case that I've been vindicated as it looks as if some of it is coming at your expense.
If push comes to shove Jim, PLEASE know that I'll back you to the hilt because once I expressed my concerns to you and why, you pulled their ads - as you should have. When you found out what was going on, you did the right thing.
I won't hold my breath waiting for an apology from the people who trashed me when I called the event into question, because frankly none of them are big enough to apologize. But YOU I'll gladly stand by.
And if you want to post this on the forum as proof that you did the right thing when you learned the truth, feel free to. Or better yet, I'll do it myself.
---end paste---
Save their identities, perhaps, as they egg on the AF-ers and stir the pot to the detriment of all involved.
I think some of those who would claim exclusive victim status have sometimes brought the suffering upon themselves in part.
If you're going to claim the high road for yourself, you must stick to it as a rule.
Why get down on their level?
If their primary problem is a fixation with all things FR/FRN, why not best them by ignoring them. (Regardless how important it may be to monitor the situation given some of the damage they've tried to wreak in the past with vendors and other aspects of the running of the Forum?)
FR is a place for politically conservative debate but I find that it's often also a place where you have to debate around Libertarian philosophy endlessly (don't they have their own website?) and fight off the anti-Republicans and fake conservatives attempting to slip in discouraging, anti-conservative lies.
This latest anti-FR incursion needs to be cut off at the knees. Jim Robinson has a right to censor those who post on his website and attack FR and it's founders, whatever the reason. I don't care about the specifics. If some FR chapter had a theft of funds that's unfortunate but it doesn't have anything to do with the website. Attempts to smear the Robinsons and other FR officials with a localized law violation is cheesy. Let them file the stupid lawsuits or whatever it is they want to do but keep it off of FR. We have enough distractions.
That could apply to most Republicans in Congress and dare I say some actions of the President. Call me disruptor, many have, but to me, like it or not, 'them's the facts'.
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